Inspired by the olympics and the BBC thing the wife fancies ‘having a go’. Is this possible? I can only find the newport council website which is a little confusing. Can you rent a bike and get a bit of coaching for an afternoon/evening? We’re in Bristol so is Newport the best option?

nickjb, went a couple of weeks ago with a few lads from work. The guy that organised it booked a two hour coaching session which included the bike and helmet hire if required.
Well worth it, had a great time and it wasn’t as difficult as I had anticipated, we all ended up doing a 250m and 1k individual sprints to see who was king of the velodrome!
No idea how he booked it, but like I said we’ll worth it.

You can but you’ll find that the Taster Sessions, certainly at Newport are booked out for at least 6 weeks. Winter is the worst time to be doing track induction – track racing season is in full swing so the evenings are usually given over to race meets and all the training sessions for accredited riders are full.

But yes, once you manage to find a session, you just turn up and for about £15 you get an hour with a coach, bike hire and shoe hire (if necessary) are included. There won’t be much in the way of training, it’ll simply be getting you used to the track, going higher up it and maybe a bit of paceline work and a few sprints if there’s time and everyone is feeling confident.

http://www.newport.gov.uk/_dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=leisure.centres&contentid=devxp001384 for Newport
http://www.nationalcyclingcentre.com/ for Manchester

The other option is to book onto one of the beginner courses, these run over about 4 weeks and you get a good level of coaching. Follow this up with an improvers course (a further 4 weeks) and you should be fine to then go to many of the drop in sessions, and/or go for accreditation.

Also join ‘South West Velodrome – Track Sessions’ of FB as ‘private’ sessions often get posted on there, so you may be able to join in someone elses taster session.

Phone this number, its the direct line to the velodrome.
Better than the switch board.

01633 670521

Newport is the best bet from Bristol. It’s great fun – though be prepared for your legs to feel a whole new kind of pain!

Went back in Feb and loved it…hire bikes are decent enough, they take Look Delta cleats if you prefer to ride clipless.